


don't say it's unholy (if i let you come hold me)

by constantly_disoriented, redlight



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Demon Deals, Demon/Human Relationships, Demons, Experimental Style, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Implied Sexual Content, Lowercase, Mortality, Nightmares, POV Alternating, demon allura, human Lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-24 23:31:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13821768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constantly_disoriented/pseuds/constantly_disoriented, https://archiveofourown.org/users/redlight/pseuds/redlight
Summary: Lance tries to treat Allura like she isnormal. He grins that terrible smirk as he greets her, and he calls her beautiful, and he kisses her hand, and he sayshello princess, my princess.Says it as though his own hands aren't shaking.Funnily enough, he does not run when she bares her teeth.Allura might just hate him, a little. All confusing things are just puzzles. This Lance must be a puzzle – something logical that can be taken apart and analyzed and pieced back together – except shecan't.She can't solve him.lance pretends he isn't scared of monsters, and allura pretends to be scary.





	don't say it's unholy (if i let you come hold me)

**Author's Note:**

> _hi we made a collab and we're proud as heck holy shit_  
>  lance's pov was written by redlight, allura's pov was written by help_im_constantly_disoriented!
> 
> if we missed anything in the tags, feel free to yell! 
> 
>  
> 
> title from ["unholy" by hey violet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8JXLs-8GOk)

✩

lance is haunted.

he’s been haunted by monsters under his bed, inside his closet, in the top corners of his bedroom ceiling – in his bones, in his flesh, in his soul, ever since he was a little kid.

ever since he was five years old and started talking to the _something_ made of darkness that lived under his street’s lamp posts. ever since he was seven and he pointed out the flame-eyed shadows that moved inside the dark shapes in the corner of his eyes, and told his grandmother, and she shushed him, said _lancito there is no need to talk about this_.

ever since lance was thirteen, _angry_ and _unlucky_ , with his bones filled up with lead and mercury sulfide, with a rage as weak and toxic as cinnabar, and he snapped at his oldest sister about the definition of the word _scared_ –

– about the glimpses of _them_ that he sees in the windows,

– about the fear in the eyes of others when they look at him, at what he _is_ ,

– about the fact that lance? oh, he’s not sure he’s entirely human anymore, and he says this with a hysterical smile and a regretful anger inside his throat, _hot and hellish_ , sulfurous and _all-consuming,_ and lance’s sister – his big sister veronica, his precious big sister –

she – she sighed and said, _oh, leandro, baby brother, you have the Sight too_ , like it's a normal thing everyone has, like lance waking up with spiders in his throat and bugs in his skin and skeletons in his closet is _normal._

like watching those shadow men tear themselves apart at the playground swing set is normal.

like his eyes playing tricks on him and then not being _tricks–_ like that's _normal._

but lance isn't five years old anymore, or seven or eight or twelve or thirteen, lance is _grown_ , and he's _used to it_ , but –

but he never thought a _demon_ – because what else can he _call_ them, those filthy monsters inside his head and draining his soul, bleeding him out like leeches and crawling underneath his fingernails –

well, he never thought that a demon could actually be _beautiful_.

✩

Allura is not a _soft_ creature.

From the time of her creation, she was raised to be of strong will, raised to have hard eyes, raised to be tougher and meaner and _better_ than her subjects. She's _not kind_ – not like Hunk is, not like Coran is, not like her mother was.

But – this human, this blue-eyed boy Hunk calls Lance – he _is._ This human is such a _fragile_ creature – a _breakable_ creature. His hands are mere bone, his eyes glass, his smile a shaky thing. Allura is not used to knowing fragile things. Everything she's ever known has been hard and tough and strong; durable, because those who are not do not survive.

This Lance – he _lies_. He lies as easily as he breathes. He acts as if he is strong; he says that he is _brave_ – he plasters on that cocky-fake smile, the one that could snap in half at any moment, at the flick of her fingers, at the touch of a breeze. In truth, he is cracking around the edges, all but shattering every night, holding himself together with his own two _broken_ hands – hands that are taped and glued and shaking.

Frankly, it’s unacceptable.

This _human_ , this boy named Lance, he pretends he isn't _scared_ of her. He flirts with her like she's some normal human – like she won't just break him in half at a whim.

(She won’t. As many faults as Hunk has in his kindness and his softness and his weakness, she doesn’t _hate_ him near enough to strip away someone he has claimed as his.)

Lance tries to treat Allura like she is _normal_. He grins that terrible smirk as he greets her, and he calls her beautiful, and he kisses her hand, and he says _hello princess, my princess._ Says it as though his own hands aren't shaking – as though fear hasn't dilated his eyes – as though he isn't ready to _fight-flight-freeze-die_ at any moment, at the first sign of hostility she shows.

Funnily enough, he does not run when she bares her teeth.

Allura might just hate him, a little. All confusing things are just puzzles. This Lance must be a puzzle – something logical that can be taken apart and analyzed and pieced back together – except she _can't._

_She can't solve him._

This human is shipwreck ruins, and puzzle pieces, and natural disaster relief all at once – broken sea glass, and locks without keys, and she _can’t piece him together at all!_

From far away, his picture is clear and pretty – and he _is pretty_ , with his blue eyes and scathing tongue and wild courage – but as she comes closer, it's clear the puzzle pieces aren't fitting together quite right. None of the edges match up, like someone has taken bits from dozens of puzzles and shoved them all together into the picture of an ocean-eyed boy.

And – she hates that, too, a little. Some time ago, a human boy was born, his eyes full of wonder and life and _pretty, pretty blue_ – and here, today, stands a man broken by – by _what_? Not age – not war – not loss –

_So what happened?_

Allura bristles with anger at her own slow uptake – Lance has the _Sight_. Logically, it must be them – the demons, her people. He can _see_ them; can _experience_ them. As a human, their tricks are so much more _visceral,_ for him.

The terror in his eyes, and the shake in his palms, and the not-smile turning his pretty canvas of a face into a war-zone is the result of _her subjects._

Allura, very firmly, does not _care_.

This – this Lance is only a stupid, silly human. He will pique her interest, for a small time, but all humans are like moths to demons.

She will blink, and he will be gone.

It does not matter that he is a pretty human. She has been surrounded by beauty her whole existence – his is no spectacular thing. She doesn’t mind that he stares a little too much, a little too long. She is a beautiful creature – a human such as he has had little experience with her kind; it is only natural that he _observe_.

She isn't bothered by his haunted demeanor. She _isn’t_.

✩

lance sees demons.

and he's totally fine, _really_. hunk gets concerned – _too damn concerned_ – but lance has lived like this for weeks for months for years, his whole life from july to june, every year, every month, every day, every _goddamn minute_.

he’s used to it. he figures he’s soulless, so he’s used to that, too.

and he’s never really _met_ a demon – well, he has hunk, but hunk is different. lance _summoned him_ , practically – with bad decisions and a lot of pleading with his failed demon circle, but, still. he summoned hunk because lance is _crazy_ , lance needs _help_ , and hunk –

hunk is help. hunk is so selfless, so caring, an _angel_ with the wrong set of wings and a smile that’s too rain-weary and faded, too harsh-broken for a being as lovely as he is. hunk doesn’t count, lance doesn’t think so – hunk _must_ have a soul.

no matter what the angels say.

so, yes. lance summoned his own best friend. he’s pathetic, he knows.

(hunk says it was to keep lance from meeting something _bad_ , something malevolent and _evil_ , so hunk appeared instead – hunk _saved him_ , he didn’t say it but lance _knows it_ , so – yes, lance is pathetic, yes, he knows this.)

but –

lance does meet _her_.

hunk’s childhood friend, before he’d been dislocated from the underworld, from the land beneath the mortal realm – his closest friend, the reigning monarch’s daughter, ruthless, beautiful, terrifying, princess of demons, queen-to-be of the underworld –

her name’s allura.

lance is scared of demons, yes.

but her? she’s too lovely. pretty’s in her name and her face and her claws and her teeth.

and all too suddenly, she’s got her clawed pretty fingers dug _deep_ into his heart and his mind and his body ( _not a soul, though, he doesn’t got one of those –_ ) and he’s –

he's _not scared._ not of her.

✩

Sometimes, Lance, this pretty slip of a human, this broken man, haphazardly pieced together by his own cracking hands, is – _strange_.

Allura is no _soft_ creature, but Lance – he seems to be ignorant of this fact.

They sit together, sometimes, in fields underground, in the never-never where her land resides, and Lance faces her with soft smiles, _tired_ smiles, a carefully quiet voice, as if he is afraid that if he speaks too loud, he’ll damn himself again and break apart for the hundredth time.

She speaks to him, because he seems too exhausted to do the speaking for her.

She tells him of her people and her childhood, and of her mother’s eyes. She tells him how she will be Queen of her people, one day, when her father dies. She tells him of the army she commands, the battles she’s won and lost and won.

And he _smiles_ , whispers in his quiet voice _I’m sure you’re an amazing leader_ , and tucks flowers into her hair, his hands unsteady and _careful_ , like she’s breakable, like she’s _delicate_.

Allura is not delicate, not like Lance is delicate.

Allura does not have _friends_ , either – Hunk is the only one who came close, but even he does not come near her, now. And yet, this human – this dangerous, reckless, _stupid-silly_ human has just wormed his way into that space. It’s ridiculous, really, the vested interest he has in her well-being – she’s _ages_ old, and tough as nails – she’s _fine_ , really.

Except – it does make her feel _odd_ , knowing Lance _cares_. What a human thing to do, to care about the well-being of another. Lance is, if not anything, human; Allura is _not_. Lance is a delicate, fragile, shaky thing; Allura is _not_.

Lance’s stitching is tearing apart at the seams; his body so violent under the skin he’s practically shaking himself apart – he cannot _handle_ her problems, great and oppressing and awful as they are.

So why – _why_ , of all women, of all creatures, of all stupid things –

Must he care about _her_?

Allura – does not _need_ to be cared about. She has lived many years, decades, _millenia_ , surviving and thriving and leading. Her problems are her own, and she has treated them as such. She – is _strong_ , is _tough_ , is hard and cold and _sharp_ on every edge. She does not _need_ Lance’s care.

He gives it, anyway.

It is, oddly, more a comfort than she would have thought.

✩

the queen of demons – oh, she’s a _princess_ , but she is the heiress and her father is – well, not in order anymore, so she is the queen, despite the unrest in the demons she rules over.

well, whatever her title is – she’s enrapturing.

she’s beautiful in the way carnage is beautiful – _efficient, frantic, elegant and unstoppable_. she’s a girl, yes, but she is a girl with razorblade teeth and plasmafire eyes, with ice-cold skin that warms so enticingly under his hands and princess-pink lips loud with the words and the tone of a _leader_.

so – so maybe lance doesn’t _understand_ – that’s what she tells him, that he doesn’t _get it_. that he doesn’t know that she's _dangerous_ , ages old – those history book definition-words, _century-millenium-eternity_. she’s ancient to his mortal perspective but she’s – oh, but she’s still just a young demon, unexperienced, always under watch from her father. she is the _princess, of course_ , and she’s rarely ventured out into the mortal realm –

not until lance dragged her up, at least.

and maybe he _doesn’t_ understand! doesn’t understand that she could _break him_ and not bat a single beautiful eyelash (and her eyelashes _are_ beautiful, longer than forever, longer than light-years, as bright as photons, too – )

well –

maybe lance is too much of a _silly, puny, arrogant little human_ to get it.

but – for a demon, she sure _acts_ very human.

and she gives him strange looks, when he treats her like one. when he offers her flowers, and compliments, and smiles as sweet as he can make himself do –

(yes, lance knows his smiles are wary and shaky, he knows he bares his crooked teeth, exposes his selfish, wanting, hopeless being. he knows he is desperate in every second and centimeter of the spacetime he engulfs – but a devil as delicate as her deserves a smile from _someone_.)

but she, allura, she treats him like he’s being _silly_ , like he's being _strange_ , but mostly –

mostly, she acts like she's never been treated _gently_ , before.

and that's –

that’s _not right_.

allura is – a girl, a sharp-eyed, razor-clawed girl, but she is pretty and fierce and intelligent and _lonely_ in a way lance can feel in his lead-laden bones, soft and sharp and stinging as loneliness does.

‘cause allura might be made of golden harsh rays and sharp lines and fierce teeth, but she –

she's _beautiful_.

and she still _feels_.

and lance can be charming, if he tries, he can be soft, fragile, and – she deserves that, y’know? to be treated like she's precious, to be taken care of, sometimes.

like she's _special._

and – not _just_ because she's the princess of demons, like the way she’s venerated and feared and despised by other monsters.

she – she deserves genuine affection. friendship. someone to tell her nice things and to keep promises to her.

she deserves it, and allura – lance hasn’t seen allura with real _friends,_ really.

so –

– despite the blatant danger, ‘cause lance is reckless, honestly –

(oh, he’s practically a danger to _himself_ , mama and veronica and luis all used to say that – )

and allura looks pretty with flowers in her hair, and she listens to him with a strange sort of awe, like she can't really believe he's there for her.

it’s ‘cause he's practically shaking himself apart, the stitching keeping his shaky-fragile self together, it’s tearing apart at his sloppily-made seams –

he can't _handle_ her problems.

– but he tries anyway.

she's a _princess_ and a princess deserves a decent knight after all, right?

and maybe lance _does_ understand – that she's _dangerous_. that she is made of centuries-millennia-eternities, that she could _break him –_

(he could be alright with that. he could value and savor the feel of her claws inside his rib cage, _snap-snap-snapping_ each delicate bone until he drowns in marrow. he could be alright with it, with her ripping his veins open to use as hair ribbons, his blood as nail polish, his eyes as ornaments –

oh, _god_ , lance would let her, if that’s what she really wanted.)

well, perhaps allura could ruin him for humanity, more than he’s already been ruined. but whatever.

she is still very, very _human_. or at least mostly.

✩

 _Oh,_ Allura knows she has made a mistake the first time she looks upon Lance and sees _sparks_. The first time his fragile-shattering smile comes her way and her heart – the one she thought disappeared with her mother’s soft eyes – crawls up from the depths of her stomach to rest between her teeth.

 _She’s grown fond of him_.

It grinds in her veins, how much she _hates_ it. It grates in her lungs as she breathes, and rises like hot, bad bile in her esophagus when she speaks.

She’s grown fond of a stupid, silly human. A fragile thing, humans are – _weak_ things – _mortal_ things.

Allura is not mortal. She will still live and breathe and hurt and scream long after Lance’s broken-shattered body has crumbled to ashes.

At least she _gets_ it, now, why Hunk cares for him so much.

✩

lance has a theory, a hypothesis, not completely tested and not entirely reputable, but – he thinks he sees creatures as horrifying as her, as _gorgeous_ as her, because he's _soulless_.

which is fitting – of _course_ she owns his soul, of course it's locked tight and bleeding in her sharp, painted claws, of _course –_

and lance? he'd've sold it to her anyway, in exchange for anything she'd offer him, anything he'd be allowed to take –

and lance is human, so, so unfortunately human, but he's _ravenous_ for everything about her –

‘cause, allura? she _screwed up,_ and she decided to waste her time with a waste of a human, and lance has been a screw-up from the start, and he just –

 _god_ , he just hopes she'll still look past his shakiness and the _stupid fear_ that rides through his veins constantly.

✩

Lance – for all his fragility – is a _wild thing_.

Allura did not think a fragile human could leave bruises in her skin, dug so deep she feels them in her bones, for all of the few minutes they bear in her flesh. Lance digs finger-shaped grooves into her sides, into her thighs, bores holes into her with his eyes – blue eyes, glass eyes; how _fiery_ they seem, as he watches her with the sort of fierce intensity she’s only ever seen in herself.

Lance makes desire streak in her insides, hot like a comet, makes her desperate and wanting and _needy_ ; positively _starved_ , hungry enough to open her jaws and bare her too-sharp teeth and swallow him _whole_ –

But she _mustn’t._ She’s bad enough as it is, carving her name into his back with her nails and biting him so hard he _bleeds_.

He seems to _forget_ , sometimes, that he is nothing more than blood and bone, for he does the _stupidest_ , most _dangerous_ things. He must know – he _must_ know that she is _strong_ , but she wonders if he truly does understand when he brings her hands up from his scratch-scarred back to his neck – his pretty, _pretty_ neck. Arrogant, is he, smirking his shaky-confident grin up at her as he reminds her to _be careful, princess, I’m fragile_.

She has to remind herself to be _careful_ , too, because for all that Lance treats her as a delicate creature, she is the Princess of Demons, and she need only flex her fingers to break his pretty little neck.

It is – _hard_ , even with all of her carefully constructed self-control, to keep herself in check, because she’s wild from the inside out, a born predator.

Maybe that’s part of the fun, knowing his life is in her hands – knowing that Lance trusts her not to _break him_. It would not take much. He is so _fragile_ , after all.

✩

when they fuck it hurts.

it _hurts_.

her nails are too sharp in his back, so he asks her to lock her fingers ‘round his throat instead, tells her to _be careful, princess, i’m fragile_ with a rueful smile and dim laughter.

she’s too frantic. he’s too desperate.

it _hurts_.

physically, it’s good, it’s _good_ , _it’s good_ , fuck – she clings to his shoulders like a _dream_ and her skin is radiant and burning-hot beneath his fingertips, burns like _fire_ when she’s worked up, like _dry-ice_ when she’s too overwhelmed, and she’s _beautiful, beautiful,_ with her hair in total gorgeous disarray and her photonic eyelashes gleaming with tears – _she’s vulnerable too, she’s fragile too_ , lance is human, sure, he’s human, but allura –

she’s more human than he could ever hope to be.

(she’s not terribly human, though.

so what does that make lance?)

so lance –

savors the flush in her skin and the bitten-red of her lips, can’t keep his wretched mortal hands off the flesh of her hips and can’t help but _squeeze_ hard enough to leave bruises – he leaves marks like bug bites trailing up her soft thighs and her tummy and up her spine, and it’s all _him_ , his teeth and his nails and his _desperation_ –

she keeps her delicate fingers, taloned though they may be, around the curve of his neck, and yeah, he smirks, he’s _fine_ , loves the feeling of his life in her hands, tells the princess to _be careful_ as a joke but this –

this makes his heart beat like it’s _alive_ , and lance –

lance forgets he’s alive, sometimes.

he gets lost. entangled in the whispered words of the shadows, the feel of suffocation and deep undersea pressure of those _creatures_ , the entities that are more than him – everything that fucks with his mind and makes his screwy little head too _dizzy_ too _terrified_ to function –

allura changes that, and lance is _desperate_ for some sort of change in himself.

allura makes him – alive. she gives him that feeling and he’s – god, he’s _addicted_ to living, now.

she could take it away in a second, too, and it’s fine, because lance would let her.

lance likes to think he’s got a quicksilver tongue to match his mercury heart and his lead-poison-shaky hands, but she presses her fingertips against his tongue, down his throat and why would he _bother_ to talk, not when he could –

 _worship her instead_.

his princess, his queen, anything she wants to be, anything she wants, well, lance doesn’t got a soul to sell anymore, but if he could –

she can have it.

she can have him.

whatever she wants. anything she wants.

that’s – that’s what lance is there for.

– fuck, _fuck_ , he just wants to give her _everything, everything_ , he’ll _tear apart the whole goddamn world they share_ , if only he _could_ , if only his _hands could stop shaking_ –

so, it _hurts_ – it’s just as _good_ as allura reaching her pretty little fingers and playing with the arteries leading to his heart, it’s just as _good_ as her sawing his skull into pieces and poking holes into his brain matter.

the sex, that is.

he’s marked her up but it’s _fine_ , she doesn’t mind (allura is a vision with her delicate sharp fingers tracing out the bite-marks in her thighs, chest heaving like she needs oxygen more than he does, cotton candy hair unraveled and wild in a way that makes lance’s _heart hurt_ – )

– the marks don’t last long, they faze and fizzle from her skin, she’s – she’s _immune_ to his toxin, and that’s the only reason lance lets himself get so –

so –

so _frenzied_.

but – he’s fallen, too far too fast, and he’s dragged her up through dirt and dying flowers to bring her up to earth, and he’s taking her _place_ , that’s what _they_ want from him –

and lance – he’s always been so overly-shaky, a tremble in his smirk and an agony in his voice masked by his stupid words, his cover-up lies.

he’s always been scared of demons, even if she doesn’t count.

he’s always known that he’ll go to hell, somehow.

it’s the truth. it’s the fact. he’s soulless and that’s what he’s _done_ , that’s his crime and punishment and sticks and stones, everything at once –

but that’s okay.

he’s got his queen, he’s got his princess, after all.

✩

It is a strange thing to wake up in the middle of the night to screaming. Demons do not _dream_ , but humans _must_ , because Lance sits up like the devil himself has cast to his veins and _screams_. He screams until he has no breath, until his voice, just as delicate as he, shatters like glass, and Allura does not know what is _wrong_.

It’s just _her_ in bed with him; no one dare torment him in her presence, let alone in her quarters. He is _safe_ , here.

Yet he screams all the same, thrashing like he’s been electrocuted, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and wet and _wild_.

It takes some time for him to calm down. Allura is not a _soft_ creature. This concept of _comfort_ is not something she knows; it is as foreign to her as the mortal relam.

Still, she tries, because Lance is a natural disaster, and she – she just doesn’t want him to destroy himself in his rage.

He _insists_ that he is _fine_ – an obvious lie, so blatant it is nigh insulting. His whole body is a _hurricane_ , ripping him up from the inside out, the destruction so devastating he does not even attempt to hide it from her, could not even if he tried.

Allura – she has watched humans, in what little time she has spent in their realm. She knows the very basics of comforting a distressed human, but, well – she has never actually _tried_ , before. She is too inexperienced; holding him would only feel like a cage; her whispers too dark, too frightening in the dim room. She is destined to fail this task, but she must still _try_.

Lance must see it, even through his tremors and heaving inhales; the way she struggles around him, tiptoes the lines, _trying_ to help. He explains to her, with quiet words and a short sort-of panicked patience, a concept so human it makes her heart ache in her chest: trauma.

It confuses her, certainly, but – humans _are_ fragile beings, after all. She should not be surprised. She tries to understand.

 _How can I fix this_ , she asks – she is _fond_ of him, does not want to see him tear himself apart from the inside out, and if there is a way to _fix it_ , she _will_.

 _You can’t_ , he answers in the same broken-shattered-lost voice he first screamed through.

That, too, is unacceptable.

✩

so maybe lance has nightmares.

it comes with being six years old and locked in his basement and hearing _screams_ ring out in his head for hours-hours- _hours_.

it comes from learning that shadows have laughter, from feeling flies buzz inside his brainflesh for too damn _long_.

it comes from the tick-tock of the clock searing in his rib cage, loud and heavy and alive until it won’t be, anymore.

so that’s the thing – lance sees demons.

 _tick-tick-tick, lancito, tick-tock, your times almost up and you’re about to **burn**_ –

and so he wakes up with spider-sensation in his mouth and screams on his lips, fingers twitching for grip, allura – oh, _allura_ , who only sleeps for leisure and not neccessity, a pretty vision with tangled hair all distressed from lance’s fingers, eyelashes fluttering heavy against her cheeks as she awakes from oblivion, pyrocumulus anger in her eyes when she asks _who hurt him_ , so genuine and desperate, innocence set upon her in a way that –

fuck. lance forgets that she’s a monster, sometimes.

and it's difficult, trying to explain trauma ( _such a human thing, really_ ) to a creature millennia old, a creature who has seen blood and gore and unspeakable acts of horror, a creature as all-encompassing and magnificent as her –

– but he tries, anyway.

and she’s such a beautiful creature.

she doesn’t understand, entirely – he can tell. it’s in the furrow of her brows and the purse of her lips and the questions she asks, the frustration that bubbes under her skin like she has sulfuric acid pushing up inside her component parts. she tries to understand, she really does, but –

lance doesn’t need her to.

he’ll tell her about his dreams, he’ll let her put her hands on his face, inspect him to see if the spiders are real, he’ll let her huff and say, definitively, authoritatively, _any subject of mine that threatens you will be punished,_ but it’s _more_ than that, and she tries to push against it –

but lance, for his whole life – he’s been seeing shadow creatures and trickster monsters, and he just –

he just hopes allura will keep him around, for the rest of his life. hopes he gave her a good enough time. hopes she doesn’t mourn, that she doesn’t know how to.

so lance – because he is ravenous, humanly-greedy and so goddamn _desperate_ – he’ll keep staying in allura’s unnecessary bed, he’ll keep winding his fingertips into that wild storm of hair, he’ll keep pressing kiss-bite-bruises against her flesh, and he’ll keep giving her flowers, just to watch her scoff and try to hide her smile.

only for the rest of his life. only for the rest of his life, and then allura will be free. she only has to wait for this to pass. and maybe, when he dies, he’ll wind up in her realm again – or a different sort of hell altogether, or nowhere at all, lance is _soulless_ after all.

but one day, allura will be free from him, so lance –

he’ll keep being greedy, for now.

✩

It’s kind of funny, Allura thinks in the sort of hysterical way that isn’t funny at all – that it _hurts_ , deep beneath her bones, so visceral a sting that she wonders if she’s actually been injured, that she cannot save Lance from dying. Allura is a selfish creature, mean and cold and _greedy_ ; she takes and takes and takes and still is not satisfied and she _wants him_.

She can protect him from her kin; she can try to save him from the way he’s burning himself up like a supernova; she can give him anything he wants – anything he needs –

She cannot stop him from dying.

Lance is – _human_ in ways Allura will never be – can never be. Allura has only been to the mortal realm perhaps a handful of times, but even a blind fool could see that Lance – Lance is the _earth_ , with his warm skin and his eyes like the sky, like the ocean, practically sprouting green from his palms with how hard he _loves_ , how well he _lives_. Humans are _fragile_ , yes – _Lance is fragile_ – but he continues to pull himself back together, stitch himself shut, keep himself contained in his fleshly suit over and over and over –

And that, too, is human; to fall and die and get back up and patch the wounds and keep _going_ is the only way humans could have _survived_ so long.

Lance is so human it _hurts_ , deep beneath her steel-made sternum, invading her lungs, squeezing her blackened, hardened veins.

He is going to die.

(A thing that burned so brilliantly could never have lived so long, anyway. A miracle, it is, that he has made it even this far.

Is it so much to ask, to have him a little longer?)

✩

( _well, it's not as though they could've lasted, anyway_.)


End file.
